Invocation Before Speaking Lyric Poetry

I want to speak into that crystal silence,
Vacuum so black it pulls the poem
Out of my chest, out of the water, out of what I don’t know,
So I can collapse into the telling of it;
I want to be surrounded by others who think as I do,
Whose feelings pop in responsive dance to my words,
I want to hear “mm” at every heartbreaking image,
I want to hear sobbing, and “ashe,”

I want again to hear my own voice in my ears,
The one I hear in my head when I am alone.
I am alone now. I am in my room, writing poetry,
With paper and a pen, and no one watching,
Total freedom and absolutely-listening quiet,
Unjudging-Jove comprehension, true need.

Balm for America

This day you will hear the kora, unplugged, in every station, and not the train,
This day you will remember what it feels like not to be oppressed,
This day everyone’s poems will be published, there will be three dollars for the arts,
This day good will declare its independence from evil,

People will stop talking about taking action
And the lion make out with the lamb,
Women will not need to starve, money will make you happy,
You will cease internalizing that idea

That artists benefit from being paid less than thieves,
This day you’ll sleep enough, hear the sound of your thoughts,
And feel the earth through your leg, the weight of the earth.
I want I should cause you to feel that feeling,

But only if you’re not feeling it,
If you are, G-d will have another good job for me. 

Chinatown SSAT-Prep Poem

As I sat in the audience waiting my turn,
Listening to the other poets speak, and wishing
That one would truly move me, I suddenly saw
The kids in the SSAT class I teach,
Yellow liquid for skin, black curving heads,
Seated before me or standing,
Like spirits of the dead, watching me.

Do they want me to talk about their plight here?
Do they have hope of rescue, or mere feel-good talk?
That hearers of poetry will have some power to change
Whole social forces of two empires?

I hate them, little addicts—up out of his seat,
Again, a second later, up out of his seat.
I’d let them, but being homeless scares me, and homelessness,
And someone does get hurt. Someone’s spat in Zemin’s eye.
They think that that’s OK until I yell.
And I’m a coward not to send them out.

I’ve been their prison guard. I tried to teach
But they made it impossible, as much as the tests.
I tried to bring in Du Fu and Li Bai!
Though in truth I don’t really understand
Their poetry, and I overstepped the bounds
Of my job description, and of vanity.

I could work an easy job, I’ve often thought,
And write poems in the evenings, in gray light,
And read them at a poetry reading, in the dark room
With yellow light on me, an audience sitting.
But somehow I keep finding myself in classrooms,
And poetry’s not a thing I can control,
And you are not those grownups who came to the poetry reading,
You, sitting before me, my thin kids.

All are architects of Fate,
 Working in these walls of Time;
Some with massive deeds and great,
 Some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing useless is, or low;
 Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
 Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,
 Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
 Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;
 Leave no yawning gaps between;
Think not, because no man sees,
 Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,
 Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
 For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,
 Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house, where Gods may dwell,
 Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,
 Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
 Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
 With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
 Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain
 To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,
 And one boundless reach of sky.

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